stackable ingot molds?

[LEADLUBBER]

Does anyone know of an ingot mold that makes stackable ingots?

I would like a way to move them besides brick-by-brick and I think this would be helpful to others who are interested in smelting several hundred pounds of lead at a time also..... even small quantities would be nice and easier to deal with if You could stack them without worry.

[shotman]

well if you fill the 4 cav full you have 4 that are attached in about a 6 lb set .They will break apart by hitting on edge of something like a 4x4

[ReloaderFred]

I made mine from 4" aluminum channel. The inside of the channel is roughly 3.5" wide and I made them 8" long. The ingots come out at approximately 8 pounds each, which is about perfect for my Master Caster. With these, you can stack them pretty high and they make a solid stack. I've got a little over 1,000 pounds smelted into these ingots now, with another thousand to go. With 8 molds, it goes fairly quickly.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[badbob454]

3'' channel iron make a nice stackable mold get @ 1 lb per inch long so my 6'' long channel iton will make a 6 lb ingot i weld 2 side by side and put a flipping handle on them 12 lbs per mold ... nice

[Suo Gan]

Does anyone know of an ingot mold that makes stackable ingots?

I would like a way to move them besides brick-by-brick and I think this would be helpful to others who are interested in smelting several hundred pounds of lead at a time also..... even small quantities would be nice and easier to deal with if You could stack them without worry.

I stack them inside 30 caliber ammo cans. You can get about 60 pounds in a can. When I am rendering I always do several hundred pounds. I stamp each ingot with what they are when the ingots are soft, then I get a cardboard box and a hand truck I throw a hundred pounds or so of alloy into the box and lug it into the shop where I stack them inside the ammo cans, which I slide under my work bench. I tape a piece of paper on the front of the ammo can with what the contents are. This system works for me. I only render maybe three times a year all at about the same time. They say lazy men are great inventors, if you are lazier than me, I look forward to your ideas!

How about a piece of 4 inch channel. Buy a bunch of welding slag hammers with the coil handle, cut them off and reweld the handles on your channel molds. A five pound mold would be a good size. Stack them like you would lay a brick wall so that they give each other strength. I like to use old omelette makers with the hinge. They are about the same size as the old GI mess kit half moon style. Those ingots weigh about ten pounds and fit into a 20 pound pot well. There are drywall mud pans in stainless steel, they make good large molds. The ten pound pots from RCBS or Lyman make good ingot molds. Cast iron sauce pans work well for this too. Use the regular ingot molds and pour them so that they all will come out connected in a five pound block, this works well too. I have used angle iron molds and put them inside coffee cans. You can get 45 pounds of ingots in a coffee can.

The problem if you use a mold that is too large is that the molds are too heavy, and they do not fit into a melting pot conveniently. To me narrow ten pound ingots are the largest practical size if you do not want to render them yet again into small ingots sometime down the road.

If you want a lead ingot the size of a clay brick it will weigh about 40 pounds. Get enough and you could have a house of lead! Just don't build it in earthquake country.

A lot of words about this I am sorry. The best method for me is the 1 pound ingots in the 30 cal ammo can, which weighs 60 pounds. You can get over a hundred in a 50 cal can which is too heavy to move, I am thinking 20 years down the road, will I be able to move them then?

KISS

[sheepdog]

A reloader friend I met here helps me make my ingots. I started with muffins but his ingot mold is I believe 5 to 6 bars nearly a foot long make from right angle bar from bed rails. the ingots stack nice but realy pack nice verticalling in a milk crate. While you cant carry said milk crate I found at least stacked two high the commerical milk crates will hold the weight with ingots neating packed to the top.

[geargnasher]

I make crates that store 60 of the castboolits 1-lb ingots, or about 60 of my 1-lb angle-iron ingots, as you can see in one of the crates. Each box is managable by itself, or can easily be scooted onto a dolly.



Gear

[OBIII]

I have a lee 4 cavity, and normally only use the two 1/2 pound cavs. When stacking these, you can alternate them up and down to get a nice tight pack. I only fill the cav's up to the top, not allowing the lead to flow between them. Let it cool, turn it over, and two 1/2 lb ingots fall right out. Makes it real easy to add to my bottom pour Lee pot. They also pack up well in a wooden box designed to fit into a large flat rate box.

[cbrick]

Here's what I use. It's the RCBS 10 pound cast iron casting pot. A word of caution, filled full it will make 10 pound ingots but 10 pounders will not fit into the RCBS 22 pound pot for re-melting. I fill it 1/2 full for 5 pound ingots that are very stable when stacked and take up less room than piles of one pound ingots.

Rick

[Mk42gunner]

1 1/2" angle iron ingot molds about 10 1/2" long will stack neatly inside a .50 cal ammo can, and when full th can will hold somewhere around 100 ounds. Not really easily movable, but how often do you move your ingots anyway?

The biggest problem with ingot molds is having enough to easily empty your smelting pot. It always seems to take forever forthe ingots to set up when I am smelting. Consequently, I keep an eye open for cheap angle iron to weld up new molds from.

While I have made ingot molds from old bedframes; they are a pain to get a decent looking weld on, for me anyway.

One thing about my angle iron ingots; your can put them in a Lee 20 pound pot at an angle and they will more or less self feed as the lower end melts (I need to try this with my new to me RCBS Promelt). You can also preheat them by sitting them across the top of the pot to drive out any residual moisture, (free heat) so the tinsel fairy doesn't come calling.

I must add that all of the pictures of ingots in this thread look better than mine; my driveway isn't level, and I always figure it is more important to get the alloy clean than to make perfect looking ingots that will get remelted anyway.

I got the dimensions for my ingot molds from posts by BruceB.

Robert

[badge176]

similar to Geargnasher's post but I added rope handles reinforced at handle with the tubes I reclain from a in-car computer printer (keeps the rope from digging into fingers). I drill holes at an angle through side and out through base (I build mine on a 2x4 chunk for a base, this allows sides to mostly be held onto the base) and run the rope through as a loop knotted at the side

[runfiverun]

the triangles stack and pack better.
i got pucks and lyman/rcbs ingots but the triangle mold i welded up does 9 at a time for about 18 lbs at a time.
i can empty my cast iron smelt pot in about 4 go rounds, and get it filled again quicker.
i have a spot under my casting bench and these stack nicely right under it.
the triangles stack far more tightly with less air gaps than the ingots do.
two six hole triangle molds would be about all you'd ever need even with two smelting pots.

[Mike W1]

My Lyman & Saeco ingot moulds produce those 1 pounders and I just stack them on small pieces of plywood with 24 of each. They're in turn stacked on each other and I can label the wood with what's on them. Works for me.

[geargnasher]

similar to Geargnasher's post but I added rope handles reinforced at handle with the tubes I reclain from a in-car computer printer (keeps the rope from digging into fingers). I drill holes at an angle through side and out through base (I build mine on a 2x4 chunk for a base, this allows sides to mostly be held onto the base) and run the rope through as a loop knotted at the side

My original plan was to drill two 1.5" holes in each end, cut out between them to make a grip with a jigsaw, and sand them smooth. That's why the sides of the boxes are taller than the amount of stacked ingots I can lift. I got lazy and never cut them out.

I like your rope handle idea better. 3/4" PVC pipe makes good rope handle grabs too.

Gear

[zuke]

I run 4 LEE mold's when I'm rendering WW.
I fill them right to the top so all 4 are one nice ingot.
I stack them against the back fence about 4-5 high.
One facing up next one facing down,one up,one down etc.

[onesonek]

I made mine from 4" aluminum channel. The inside of the channel is roughly 3.5" wide and I made them 8" long. The ingots come out at approximately 8 pounds each, which is about perfect for my Master Caster. With these, you can stack them pretty high and they make a solid stack. I've got a little over 1,000 pounds smelted into these ingots now, with another thousand to go. With 8 molds, it goes fairly quickly.

Hope this helps.

Fred

I like the idea of these 4" channels,,,,maybe a tad longer for a 9 lb. ingot to better suit my wants.

[captaint]

I just use the RCBS ingots and the Lee 1 lb ers. And the Cast Boolit ingots. They all stack well enough for me. It ain't like I'm gonna pick up a milk crate full anyway!!! enjoy Mike